Customer Reviews

Storycatcher: Making Sense of Our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story

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Christina Baldwin's work on Story...the art, the practice, the importance of telling and re-telling stories in our lives is a stunning masterpiece. Woven beautifully with fragments and selections of her own stories, Baldwin once again instructs, enchants and inspires the reader about the critical nature and importance of the individual stories of all of us. Whether it's to build community, heal generational wounds, create stronger organizations, leave a legacy, or simply to pass on information, Baldwin's narrative builds a compelling case for the power of "storycatching." A magnificent read...and a wonderful gift to give. What will be the questions you carry to ask of yourself and others? A must-have!!

Christina Baldwin's Storycatcher tells stories of hope. She articulates beautifully the power and necessity of sharing story with those around us to build webs of connection, to build community, to provide a bridge to understanding. We all have a story. Baldwin's genius shines through showing us how to bring story into the center of our lives through telling her own story. This book is a work of love and brilliance that brings light into the world.

This wonderful book explores the many uses of story telling not just for the listeners but for the tellers as well. Whether or not you ever publish your own stories, Storycatcher will convince you of the value of telling them. Christina Baldwin is at her best. Through her own stories and those of others, she shows how our stories can open the path to understanding each other and ourselves. Storycatcher will inspire and help you to catch as many as you can.

In Storycatcher Christina Baldwin has, with grace and wisdom, reminded us of the importance of story in our lives. She deftly weaves the personal - stories from her own family lineage and interviews with a diverse group of men and women living their own unique history - to illustrate how our stories ground us and nudge us into paths that can make a difference for future generations. Each chapter ends with ideas about how to"practice" the art of story catching as a way of enriching and illuminating our lives. A Baldwin classic.

I reluctantly read this book based on the recommendation of a friend. I was not a storyteller nor particularly interested in story, so I really wasn't expecting much from the book.

Boy, was I wrong! This book helped me realize how central story is to my life, to my work, and to the way that I think about and interact with the world. The author really opened my eyes to the power of story. I've started keeping a journal. I've started having more interesting conversations with co-workers and others. Perhaps I'll start writing more interesting reviews too!

In a world of advice and new-fangled approaches to timeworn ways, it has been very refreshing for me, and many thousands of others, to remember the ancient, simple way: telling stories. We can begin by revealing our own story to ourselves. Then we can share our story in community so as to find common ground with others.

Christina Baldwin has led the way of story since publishing her first book on journaling thirty years ago. One to One: Self-Understanding through Journal Writing was followed by Life's Companion: Journal Writing as a Spiritual Quest. (You will find a review of the latter book on this site.) Calling the Circle: The First and Future Culture describes the way of council for us to use in whatever context we meet with others. This is the methodology Christina and partner Ann Linnea have shared around the world through their business PeerSpirit, Inc. Christina's fourth book published in 2002, The Seven Whispers: A Spiritual Practice for Times Like These, invites people into a dialogue with soul.

All of these approaches to story have led to the richness of this offering: Storycatcher. The very word invites us to step into our stories and to see ourselves and our story through the "spiral of experience." The spiral is engaged when "something happens to shake up the status quo of our lives." Other tools for storycatchers are charts that describe what "story space" is and "Setting the Space."

Our lives are filled with stories--television commercials, newscasts and e-mail chains are stories. Coworkers share stories on Monday morning. As Christina points out, "Story is both the great revealer and concealer." Her theme throughout the book is authentic stories. It takes courage to tell them, but sharing our wisdom is what we need for survival. And storycatching is "a skill we can remember and practice and encourage in each other." While an intentional circle may be possible, stories can also be told spontaneously around the dinner table when someone poses a question for reflection and sharing.

All of the charts, tools and prompts come from Christina's own poignant and powerful story in relation to her experiences as a young writer; her family, especially her brother Carl; and world events like the Cuban Missile Crisis. Reading of her own beginnings as well as answering the questions she poses at the end of each chapter, will help you remember what's important to you. You may write those thoughts down and appreciate your own insight as you reflect on your life's story.

As storycatchers, we are practitioners of the heart of language. "In serving as the heart of language, story imparts four distinct gifts." They are: "1) story creates context; 2) context highlights relationship, 3) context and relationship change behavior and lead to holistic and connected action; and 4) connected action becomes a force for restoring/restorying the world."

In the second half of the book, Christina includes the stories of others. A young woman in Africa, a grandmother in Arizona, a visionary Danish friend, two Episcopalian priests. Each has something in his or her life that resonates with our own. The gift is that resonance, but it is also the vision--how they took their stories into the world.

Christina has identified four activities required to work with self-story: linking (to another's story), editing (through therapy or journal writing), disorienting (what could be a "sudden reversal in circumstances") and revisioning (a foundation for our life's work).

The Arizona grandmother Christina writes about is Kit Wilson, a psychotherapist who is an alcoholic and has a family history of addiction. Kit works with her family stories through journaling and time away to grieve and commune with the spirit of her dead mother. As Kit says, "I am contributing to my lineage backwards and forwards, through the personal work I've done to heal myself." The compassion she began to feel for and from her mother is personal work that will help her in her practice. It is also of great benefit to family members such as her grandson, also an alcoholic. In the section titled "Writing and Talking in the Seven Generations," Christina includes a list of what storycatching in the family line requires, including saying what is without drama and being ready to forgive.

From the personal, Christina takes us to the impersonal state of the workplace. But, as she points out, it isn't a place without story. People work there after all, and the organization or institution also has a story. Christina describes the work of Toke Paludan Møller, a Danish man she met through her work with From the Four Directions, and who is "a spiritual warrior for story space." Toke has favorite questions for his work in an organization, and Christina includes a list of them. When Toke works with a group of people, he thinks about three levels of story: "the individual story, the organizational story, and the species story." Christina and Toke, among others, are part of a vision called the Art of Hosting, where a team of hosts volunteer to hold the space for the three levels of story. What results "is a community of people who are practicing the power of conversation to change the world."

From the story of the self that begins with our birth story, we continue through a process of remembering, speaking, writing about our own lives. We decide "what we want our lives to include and what kind of a legacy we want to leave behind, and then we are challenged to act on this story--to become who we say we are." Can we as storycatchers change the world? From my own experience and from the stories Christina shares, her vision and her dedication, I know we can.

Your story begins with a question: How might you help story survive?

by Mary Ann Moore
for Story Circle Book Reviews
www.storycirclebookreviewsorg
reviewing books by, for, and about women

I learned of this book through a professor's suggestion and thought that I would put it on a reading list for a later time. Having always been drawn to the power of story, I found myself ordering it and opening the pages earlier than planned. Baldwin's genuine storytelling ability left me smiling throughout the day and hopeful about the benefits story can create in connecting strangers, friends, and enemies alike.

If you've ever sat down at a kitchen table in awe of the stories that are told around it- this book is for you. You will see that storycatching is more than just a pleasurable experience, it has potential to change hearts and minds.

In one section, Baldwin talks about her experience with posing a question about an individual's first memory of coffee while standing in a long line at a coffee shop. The discussion this created was wonderful- so next time you are standing in a long line trying to pass the time, I would encourage you to take her suggestion. Pose a question and you will be amazed at the results.

This is one of the best reads of the year- prepare to be inspired.

"Every person is born into life as a blank page - and every person leaves life as a full book" (p. xi). This sentiment from the preface of Christina Baldwin's new book sums up the overall theme of this wonderful look at the power, creativity, and uses of story.

Broken into ten chapters, this book is chock-full of amazing insights. Nearly every page contains at least one nugget of wisdom. Baldwin focuses on how story connects us, the art of storycatching, why we make stories, creating a story of the self, and finding our place in the order of things. Along the way, she addresses healing, the spiritual, power in organizations, personal growth and power, and ever so much more.

This book speaks to the heart and soul of what makes us human: the ability to tell stories, both orally and in writing, and to share wisdom, make sense of our lives, and move through our time on earth with meaning. "Story is a search for community that allows us to share, build, and learn from each other... We choose whether we want to live in hopefulness or despair. Storycatchers choose hopefulness, knowing that story has the power to change our lives" (p. 236).

The writing here is lyrical and sure, her prose evocative. She's annotated it and included a reading group guide. Baldwin writes with a deep knowledge and wisdom most of us can only dream of being able to describe, and she does it with the grace of an angel. This is a book that should become a classic. Highly recommended to readers, writers, thinkers, and dreamers everywhere. ~Lori L. Lake, Midwest Book Review

"We are the story-making creatures," says Christina Baldwin, and she goes on to inspire readers to locate, articulate, and celebrate their story-making process. Storycatcher is deeply informed by her rich experience as a writer and a teacher of writing. She weaves personal story into collective story seamlessly and beautifully--pointing the way for writers of all stripes. Whether your interest is essay, memoir, novel, genealogy, short story or poetry, there are prompts a plenty. Above all, this book is a companion--the best kind--wise, kind, honest and fun. What a gift to all readers and writers!

This profoundly moving book, Storycatcher, by Christina Baldwin has recently been released in paperback. It is a masterful opus about the awakening power of story to shape, and reshape, human experience and destiny. It inspires us as writers and storytellers with creative guidelines and evocative questions. But even more so, Storycatcher is itself a story: one that places language as the sacred foundation of being human and connects us to the joy within ourselves and each other, our past, and our future.

Storycatcher is an exceptional tale that weaves the heart of personal story with the universal, human story. As Baldwin says, "we literally cannot think without words, but it is the feelings words evoke that gives story its power...the voice of story is calling us to remember our true selves."

This book entrances readers with its poignant narratives and dazzles with insight into the unbroken stream of human existence that story--both the written and oral tradition--inspires. Storycatcher helps us make sense of our lives and helps us to make sense of the world and our place in it. This is an outstanding book that will rouse your heart and open your eyes.

Author Christina Baldwin is one of the founders of the personal writing movement that emerged during the 70s. For more than thirty years her life's work has been writing, teaching, and inspiring people to have heartfelt dialogues and authentic conversations. Storycatcher is a fascinating interweaving of narrative worthy of her accumulated wisdom and maturity, and a timely gift that builds bridges of connection to personal and collective meaning.

Review by Julie Clayton